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Pix ‘n’ links starts today with this guy, taxidermy’d into eternity but relevant just the same:

A coyote was spotted in my neighborhood, so there was a stand-up on the news today and the usual blah-blah about not taking shots at them, and so on. I’ll be careful putting the bunny outside, but what else can you do? Detroit is a wild-ass place.

That photo’s from Flickr, taken by someone named…Kristymp, and all rights are? Reserved, yes.

Links? A few:

One week later, the brush fires continue to flare up at the Susan G. Komen Foundation, already going down in the history of screwups as one of the best EVAHR. Is Nancy Brinker the next to go? At this point it’s a little too-too for me, but hey — it’s still got legs.

You know what bugs me about these stories? They play the news media like a fiddle, that’s what.

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93 responses to “Wily.”

beb said on February 10, 2012 at 8:24 am

Nice diorama on the coyote, actually. Good enough for a nature Center display, if not actually from a nature center display. A lot of taxidermy seems creepy but those skills are needed for creating displays of wildlife.

Should Nancy Brinker step down from Komen? Definitely. She was out there defending their decision before they reversed themselves so there’s no way she can claim that she wasn’t responsible for the decision. She part of the taint. Then again what we’ve really learned about this Planned Parenthood fiasco is how much Koman spends on itself and how little it spends on “For the Cure.” Your charitable donations would go farther going somewhere else.

the guy who came up with the “yellowgirl” ad also came up with the satanic sheep video for the last election cycle and we’re still talking about that. So: ‘mission accomplished – asshole!’

I’m pretty sure that’s Wile E. Funniest thing about Hoekum’s obnoxious ad: He can’t, in reality, name a spending measure Stabenow voted for that he didn’t.

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Deborah said on February 10, 2012 at 9:36 am

I think I mentioned this here before, my husband had a date or two with Nancy Brinker when he was an undergrad at the U of Illinois. Her name was Goodman then, she was a rich girl from Peoria. She’s pretty right wing herself.

Edit: I forgot to mention that from her picture, she’s obviously had some face/neck work done. She’s at least as old as my husband, 65.

Does Botox actually numb brain cells? That would explain so much in so many cases.

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Sue said on February 10, 2012 at 10:45 am

But isn’t Brinker Susan Komen’s sister? And what would her resignation accomplish without the resignations of a good part of the board as well?
Forcing her out makes her a martyr to her other cause, conservative social policy. No one’s mind will be changed and she’ll have a different soapbox on which to make her mischief. Those calling for her ouster would do better to demand damage repair by definitive action rather than symbolic action.

A sociology major! It doesn’t say much for the Berkeley sociology department that she didn’t recognize that the ad was loaded with racist dog-whistles. I wonder what would have been too much for her? A straw hat? An opium pipe?

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Suzanne said on February 10, 2012 at 11:51 am

What always amazes me is that the people that are terrified of the US becoming (dare I say it) socialist are terrified of us being taken over economically by China. How can we be scared of them? If socialism (Gah! I said it again!),and it’s angry cousin Communism, is so bad, how is China doing well enough economically to take us on ?

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nancy said on February 10, 2012 at 11:53 am

Look at the ad again, Jason. The straw hat was dangling down her back.

The Tribune has run a couple of articles about coyotes recently. Their numbers are on the rise all over, evidently. “The same trend seems to be happening in other U.S. cities, he said. In the 19th century, coyotes were confined to the plains and grasslands of the West and Southwest. As wolves and other big predators were killed off, coyotes moved in. They now occupy nearly all of North America and have moved deep into Central America.” … “All of us are living with coyotes now,” Gehrt said. “We might not see them, but they’re everywhere.” … “If you remove coyotes from a territory, new ones will move in in two weeks,” Gehrt said. … “Urban coyotes, like their rural cousins, survive mainly by eating rodents, along with deer (mainly carcasses) and fruit. They typically avoid humans and don’t eat much garbage. Cats make up about 1 percent of urban coyotes’ diet, but coyotes might kill cats as rivals, since both are “rodent-killing machines,” Gehrt said.”http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-02-02/news/ct-x-n-chicago-coyotes-20110202_1_coyote-numbers-stanley-gehrt-explosion

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Minnie said on February 10, 2012 at 12:41 pm

Just wrote the Komen organization for what must have been the sixth or seventh time. They’re starting to piss me off.

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alex said on February 10, 2012 at 12:43 pm

Not sure what Brinker does to her face. There was a photo at Huffpost the other day where she had a blonde up-do and it looked like it was taken with an extreme soft-focus lens. That, or her face was swollen from some sort of dermabrasion. Her turkey neck didn’t look like you could bounce a quarter off it, anyway.

I’m all for urban coyotes that kill rats. We have a couple of coyote dens on our land in NM and we see a lot of thier scat here and there. I love spotting them, I have romantisized them as being outsider characters, who are loners that lead interesting lives. I’m weird like that. Not that I’m like that, but weird because I think that.

Alex: She looks a little like John Mellencamp, if he’d had a “Thin White Duke” phase.

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MarkH said on February 10, 2012 at 1:03 pm

Dignity in politics. When there’s a pile of money around and fame for a beauty queen. What a concept.

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CW said on February 10, 2012 at 1:20 pm

I wrote some stories for the Trib a couple years back on coyote troubles in Wheaton. After much debate, the city brought in a trapper to eliminate what it considered nuisance coyotes.

Illinois law forbids the relocation of trapped coyotes — they must be put down. Several of the trapped Wheaton animals had human food in their systems, so someone was feeding them and they had become habituated to people. Always a bad situation for the coyotes, and potentially a dangerous one for any unsupervised little doggy.

Why didn’t Hoekster’s advertising Brain Trust just get Michelle Malkin to do that ad. She would have done it gratis, and she’s just loaded with instant credibility. And, wanna bet those paddies were in Louisiana or Arkansas? And yeah, I do know Malkin is filipino. Doubt that would matter much to the target audience for Hoekster’s vile ad.

Jakash, may I note that Stanley is a natural resources prof at Ohio State? It’s a fascinating project; I never heard how he ended up being the Cook County Coyote ranger, but it’s quite a program.

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adrianne said on February 10, 2012 at 2:19 pm

Karen Handel is unbelievable. After engineering the faux Komen “policy” with the express purpose of cutting off Planned Parenthood, she’s now shocked! shocked! that Komen donors are furious and reacting the only way that counts – cutting off their financial support. She’s doomed the organization. And she’s still whining about those bullies at Planned Parenthood violating the “ladies agreement” to keep this quiet. Wah!

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Jakash said on February 10, 2012 at 2:25 pm

This may only be of interest to me, but, what the heck, I’ll give it a shot here, anyway. It is, I think, a revealing look at the state of media and rights infringement at this juncture in the evolution of TV and the internet. Saturday Night Live had a funny spoof of Downton Abbey last Saturday. It was noted on many different websites and, seemingly, appreciated by all who mentioned it. I posted the video of it here in the comments at nn.c on Monday afternoon. (Judybusy liked it!) After noticing that the video had been taken off of YouTube, I was encouraged to find it posted on an MSN TV blog. I thought that since MSN is affiliated with NBC, maybe it was authorized to be on that site. Alas, subsequently that video was removed as well, courtesy of NBC/Universal. I recently came across this blog post that details the same frustration that I experienced. Evidently, either NBC has quashed this video on its own, or PBS or the BBC or somebody else has decided not to allow it to be shown. It has never been posted on the NBC or Hulu websites and was left out of the “full episode” of last week’s SNL that is available there. I find the whole thing odd, as it would have been swell publicity for SNL and, given the state of satire one sees these days, it was hardly that outrageous of an affront to Downton Abbey. Oh, well, FWIW: http://daggle.com/watch-snl-hilarious-downton-abbey-sketch-2964 (Note: the guy added the video as part of his post, but it’s been taken down there, too.)

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Joe K said on February 10, 2012 at 4:11 pm

Sue@6,
Must be some sort of test flight, but man 19hr is a long time to be aloft.
Pilot Joe

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Deborah said on February 10, 2012 at 4:15 pm

Getting lake effect snow here in Chicago. White caps on tbe lake from the north, north east. Supposed to accumulate 6″. We’ll see if that really happens.

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Sue said on February 10, 2012 at 5:05 pm

Deborah, in my little corner of SE Wisconsin, it’s been snowing all day with whipping winds and a bracing wind chill. This after a forecast of maybe 1 – 2 inches, mostly along the lake.
Hah.
Although Mother Nature was kind enough to cover all the buds coming up after the recent warm spell with today’s snow in advance of tomorrow’s high of 17, so bless her heart I guess.

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MarkH said on February 10, 2012 at 5:06 pm

Nancy – Sad news for you and all of us Big Valley fans. RIP Nick Barkley.

Speaking at a panel about the Obama administration’s ruling on contraception, during the annual CPAC conference in Washington on Thursday, Thomas said that Maddow was the “best argument in favor of her parents using contraception.” The comments drew a rebuke from Fox News host Greta Van Susteren, who said Thomas should personally and publicly apologize to Maddow. Gay-rights group GLAAD also started a “#gladmaddowwasborn” hashtag on Twitter.

This whole thing is just odd. The rule in question dates back 12 years, as Moe showed us yesterday, and BOOM – we have a controversy! And chuckleheads like Cal Thomas (et al) get a twofer – misogynist “jokes” and homophobia! Woo Hoo!!

@Sue – Serious airliner fanatic here. It’s very common for the routes used for flight tests to trace patterns, especially with the advent of online flight tracking. I had a bunch of them bookmarked but they are no longer on flightaware. Here is another example from Airliners.net:
Cessna logo:

Well the News Sentinel has somehow blocked me from further commenting. Assholes. I just wanted to tell Bryan Brown this:

“Note to self: do not argue with someone who cannot spell Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s name correctly.”

If anyone still has posting privileges could they put that up there for me?

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MaryRC said on February 11, 2012 at 4:11 am

It must be hard on the actresses who play the servants on Downton Abbey to have to look so drab while the Crawley girls get to swan around in jewels and gorgeous dresses. The actress who plays Daisy, aka Mouse Girl, has to have wax put on her hair to make it look unwashed enough for her role.

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Joe Kobiela said on February 11, 2012 at 6:55 am

Jw from NJ. Did you notice what was spelled out? I am in Lorado just flew down 7.5hr
Pilot Joe

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Dorothy said on February 11, 2012 at 7:30 am

What a pleasure it is to leisurely scroll through the above 42 comments in one sitting. I am in a hotel in Pittsburgh – here for my Uncle Joe’s funeral – and killing time until hubby is ready to go down for breakfast. Just want to add that we hear coyotes in the back of our property in the middle of the night 2 or 3 times a month and ever.single.time their yowls make the hair on my neck stand up. My inside dogs just listen respectfully & never bark, which kinda amazes me.

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JWfromNJ said on February 11, 2012 at 9:17 am

@Joe – It was 787 then a logo of the Boeing Commercial Airlines division. Test was of the GEnx engines for certification. At one point I had a bunch of these things bookmarked but after a while the flightaware pages seem to just show point A to point B. It’s become a game of one-upsmanship between Boeing and Cessna, which don’t compete in terms of products, to come up with the most creative tracks.
Boeing did something different with a recent test flight of the 747-800 that they themed with Johnny Cash’s “I’ve been everywhere,” hitting 46 of the lower 48 (they missed RI and WV):http://flightaware.com/live/flight/BOE440/history/20111102/2100Z/KPAE/KPAE

When Willard Windsock was told that 100% of people affected with Tourette syndrome will vote, he promptly changed his campaign slogan to ……FUCK this shit!

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brian stouder said on February 11, 2012 at 10:47 am

Moe – I registered for the site, so as to copy/paste your remark, and it won’t let me comment, either.

Maybe it’s all for the best, since he seems to be more than a little bit unhinged, making no less than 5 comments, responding to your last one.

But you know what they say about wrestling with a pig in the mud…

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JWfromNJ said on February 11, 2012 at 10:58 am

@Brian, Moe

Seems like they closed the comments on Bryan Brown. Unhinged is a very diplomatic way of putting things. It’s telling that he seems to have his daddy joining the fight, like this is some 5th grade “quarrel” in the lunchroom.

Everyone of these hypocritical prick GOPers has coverage for contraception and for Viagra or Cialis under their taxpayer funded Congressional health insurance plans. Not that any of those dessicated old misogynists are shooting live amm. This is the sort of rank, villainous, douchebag double-dealing one would think would be quite obvious to even the most oblivious and obtuse voter.

Last night, 3 friends and I sat down for our fortnightly gamenight, wherein we play a few boardgames (or “Euro-games”, as they are generally known; usually colorful, clever games that combine a certain amount of strategy with an encompassing theme; but we digress!).

As it happens, the three other fellows are all Catholics, and the first topic for conversation was the insurance-kefluffle (sorry Adrianne – or whoever complained about that particular journo-word!), about which none of them were happy with the president, at all.

So, after a friendly conversation about various aspects of this issue, we discussed whether it would change any votes amongst us.

Afterall, excepting Ron Paul, each of the other Republican candidates to replace the president continually try and outbid one another about how quickly they will go to war versus Iran – raising the question: would it best serve general morality to make damned sure that no woman gets any prescription that can be termed “contraceptive”; or would general morality and religious liberty be best served by the prospect of inaugurating a brand-new war, which is certain to kill large numbers of men and women and boys and girls; and maim many more, and cause incalculable suffering and hardship?

Aside from that, we discussed the fact that President Obama won the Catholic vote last time by 4 points, and won the vote amongst women by 13 points. The thought was that the president won’t do any worse (and will probably do even better) amongst women voters….and indeed, he may not lose much – if any – of the Catholic vote he got last time.

In our little group of Catholics unhappy with the president, he didn’t lose a single one

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brian stouder said on February 11, 2012 at 2:14 pm

And, two more non-sequiturs.

First, at McDonalds yesterday I read Mitty’s live sop to the C-PAC crowd as I ate my somewhat soggy McChicken sandwich (the bank of TVs in there – with various news & sports shows and daytime dramas have no sound, but instead closed-captioning is activated), and I chuckled when the screen said he declared he was “severely conservative”. I assumed he really said something like “seriously” or “fiercely” – surely not “severely”, right?…..and of course I was wrong!

The man is severely tone-deaf, when it comes to off-the-diamond-cufflinks remarks.

And secondly, after I read the above article I followed the link below, about a story I heard in yesterday’s news. The image is deeply disappointing; striking pretty much the same chords as that chucklehead-painting Nancy linked to yesterday

No Brian. Will not run, if drafted will not serve. I mean to say that Kansas Young Lawyer is seriously disturbed. Now if he were Seamus on the roof of Miitt’s Wagon Queen Family Truckster, I might be tempted to hose his shitcaked ass down, drive the rest of the way to Toronto, and worry about the soaking wet in 70 mph winds later. But civilized people treat dumb and mad beasts better than that. Shitheels like Willard should be restricted to ratdogs like Paris Hilton has, or friends like his namesake had in Willard and Ben.

Why wouldn’t it be possible for some reporter to ask Cal Thomas how his porn stache was inspired. The irredemable asshole might swallow his tongue, and Krauthammer would die of a broken heart.

I know Nancy was all for putting the Seamus story to rest a few days ago, because this guy is indictable as a monstrously sociopathic shit for all sorts of other transgressions. But let’s think about the nation’s revulsion at Mike Vick for fighting dogs. Did Ron Mexico kill dogs. Sure, when they were damaged and in pain beyond repair. On a scale of mindless moral turpitude, I say the windsock is more heinous and more like the kids that torure small animals on Law & Order that are likely to treat fellow human beings in thouughtlessly self-aggrandizing and psychopathically damaging ways. Guy like that, I wouldn’t trust him to euthanize an invasive killer Python without taking perverse pleasure in the act. No joke. The guy is a scumbag, no two ways about it. Trusting with actual peoples’ lives and welfare would be an affront to God and his Universe.

Seriously, please listen to that foodstamp President link I posted. The most stultified GOPer amongst ye would have to admit Newt and his babbies just lie they ass off and couldn’t care less. #100-lb. rodent, want to try to contradict the Representative’s facts?

Few weeks ago, Nancy brought up a character in a local production and mentioned showing your ass. Fair enough. Fact is Newt lied his ass off.It is also quite clear that anti-Obama scat on the internet is incontrovertibly loony and racist. I think attempting to deny that is a sorry exercise in making excuses for folks out to get Scout. Racism is an exceptionally strong current in so-called Conservative thinking. Anybody that denies this is brain=dead or wishful-thinking. The idea is buried and inevitable. If Americans didn’t believe in their racial superiority, how would they propel an inferior culture by slaughter over a superior and peaceful culture over the great plains? There really is no conceivable excuse if what it produces is Newt, Mitt and the guy that took his dead fetus home to introduce it to his living kids.

The GOPer Party has chosen to oppose the fairly amazing activist President with Godawmighty wierdos and sub-humans. Pleas show how one of them does not fit that description. These are sarey fuckers. ot really, just repulsive hypocrites. No joke, right? Name a single redeeming factor about one of them?

I’m quitting discussing politics for the time being. If somebody is so fucking dumb to buy some GOPer bullshit, stupid is hard to predict and you must be a moron. And I really mean that. Anti-human politics is Nazism.

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brian stouder said on February 11, 2012 at 8:41 pm

Well, no more politics, indeed. Whitney Houston, at 48 years old – Rest in Peace.

edit – Dexter, that is a marvelous museum, indeed. Pam and I visited it some years ago, and I keep threatening to drag the kids there; maybe this spring, eh?

Meanwhile, the Allen County Public Library has a Lincoln-related lecture tomorrow (Sunday), which I plan on attending.

Today on C-SPAN, they ran an 11 year old interview with Lerone Bennet about his (altogether marvelous) book Forced Into Glory; a genuine treat. a PhD Friend-of-Nancy told me that Bennett visited Fort Wayne’s (now non-existent) Lincoln Museum, and I would have loved to have taken that in.

If you want to vote for the dog torturing party, God take your soul. If you claim that wasn’t torturing a dog, kiss my ass. I’ll strap your ass in a crate on top of Mitt’s Desert Queen, and does he ralize how gay that is. and drive you from Belmont to Toronto. That is an inhuman excuse for a human being. The shower and the dry-down, that is just humanitarian. The guy is a revolting criminal, and anybody that would do that to a dog would treat what he considers lesser humans pretty much the same way. He is a sub-human shithead, no matter what Nancy thinks. There is no concivable excuse in the treatment of his dawg. He is a more despicable scumbag than Mike Vick. What would Romney’s executive decision had Seamus been dead in that carrier.? Tell the Draft Dodger Boyos the dog was fine. George Romney was an admirable statesman. His son is one revolting POS.

Brian, and Dexter, and you guys, You are believers in a decent American society. If it were made up of folks like you, I’d want to believe in the same thing. I’m shabby on history, but I know a lot about slave history from reading Ismael Reed. The country was exceptionally cruel to slaves and aborigines, and it is difficult for me, with a Jesuit education, to believe any of it was actually something that could be morally supported. Then we got Ron Raygun and we are supposed to think murdering Archbishop Medeiros was legitimate. Sorry but I can’t see my country as beneficent in this hemisphere, which I guess makes me some sort of commie socialist. What is wrong with these goons that hate this hemisphere?

It IS fascinating, though. A year ago, or so, I read about a fellow who was visiting the National Archives, and actually changed a hand written document that President Lincoln had signed; I believe the fellow changed the date on a presidential pardon, to make it appear that it was issued by the president the same day his life ultimately ended.

The funny part about the article was that the fraudster had a knock at the door, and it was a pair of agents from the National Archives(!!). How cool would THAT job be? (I imagine a suit-and-tie clad Joe Friday or Steve McGarret type, icily telling his partner to “book ’em”, as he expounds on this latest afront to the National Archives)

Anyway, the Whitney Houston story continues to unfold on the BREAKING NEWS on the teevee machine, and will undoubtedly be increasingly sad as the evening progresses.

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Kaye said on February 12, 2012 at 1:19 am

Drat Nancy. Things get interesting just as your routine no longer includes regular stops at the local cop-shops. Maybe you could turn that batch of crazy into a long-term Vanity Fair gig.

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beb said on February 12, 2012 at 11:37 am

I have seen a full-on melt-down by caliban in a while, though his spelling remained good so maybe that was a full-on melt-down, only a partial on.

Whitney Houston’s death is so sad if only because she had so much potential. And then she met Bobby Brown. Can we charge him with being an accessory to her death?

I haven’t seen a full-on meltdown by Caliban in a while, though his spelling remained good so maybe that wasn’t a full-on melt-down, only a partial one. Think that’s what you meant, beb.

Yep. my apologies. If people can’t stand Mittleman, how in God’s name do they stomach the site of Rick Santorum? I mean the guy is Dean Wormer and his Little Hitler protege rolled into one.

I think they mean Santorum happens. And no, that is not political. I find the wierdo prick intensely personally revolting, on a Mittens scale, and he sure as shit looks like that ROTC ahole in Animal House, in a separated from birth kinda way. Who is putting the lube in pig farms?

And, I want to know where Willard Windsock stands on the death penalty for Union Carbide, the corporate person, my friend, for the poison leak at Bhopal. Send the bastard to Ole Sparky Mittens, and I might buy your line of pig manure.

Obviously, the severely conservative will be against this for both parental rights and anti-contraceptive reasons. And likewise the pro-individual autonomy camp will ask what’s wrong with this. My own, shall I say neo-conservative heart (wait, that’s taken, and I’m neo-interventionist at best, but never mind) is horrified at the idea of sexually active 13 year olds getting “the plugs” as I’ve heard 13 year old girls refer to them in, oh, the last week. Yet when the parents are willfully or economically necessarily largely not available to the daughter who is already making her own dinner, plans, and life choices after 3 pm (if Mom goes to work for ten hours four days a week, and cleans offices with a service for another twenty hours a week, an example that I swear, Your Honor, I’m just pulling out of the air), is this not better than giving birth at age 14.2 or so? Yes, yes, abstinence, all for it, worked to keep me from being a father too early, gosh yes. Now, back to the real world, aka where I’m talking to these kids.

Other than hitting the sour mash bourbon at Calibanish levels, I really don’t know the answer. Having talked to a Mom and daughter this week where she was ruefully helping her girl get this preventative treatment, because “I have three others at home, and I can’t afford to have her all pregnant and unable to take care of them watching her own,” and knowing this is one of the good situations re: mother-daughter, maybe we should see more of this. I did ask, before you ask: “Hon, you know these don’t fully protect you; are you two talking about . . .” “Oh, sir, the guys won’t wear those things. I know where to get ’em, though; Mom’s told me to ask.”

Like I said, this is one of the better situations. But if we thought the HPV vaccine situation was played for politics and melodrama . . . anyone who has a clearer thought than I do, please speak it, and I’ll consider, but that’s why I was spending a cold sunny afternoon researching Depo-Provera, Jadelle, et alia, and learning that GB is way ahead of us in a cold, sunny sort of way.

Sister Re was Whitney Houston’s godmother. And Whitney was terrific in The Bodyguard, with Kevin Costner. An underrated good movie.

Jeff (MMO): Why should parents have rights over children? And HPV vaccine turns people into Down Syndrome folks. Michelle Bachman said so and she is so terrifying, I’m afraid to say it isn’t so, Joe. Actually, don’t the personhood measures mean kids are free to do whatever the hell they want, or does it only apply in utero? Or once they are born, do they become chattel?

According to the NHS Information Centre, about 7,400 girls aged 15 or under had implants or injections last year, up from 2,900 in 2005/6. This included 2,500 who had injections last year, up from 2,100.

GOPers would prefer these kids get pregnant. Only way to look at Santorum anti-contraception shit. Every pregnancy is an act of God. Like Leda and the Swan. And these cavemen mysogynists are slouching toward Bethlehem. More like The Second Coming.

And Jeff, 31% of respondents in that online poll favored (pr)teaching absitnance, and everybody knows how well that works. Maybe Professor Newt can develop the curriculum. What godawful hypocrites these asshole are.

Anyhow, crediting you with some attention to this issue and having a viewpoint or two, tell me: should this be available to juveniles 12 to 16 who want it without parental permission? Caliban, I’m sincerely interested in arguments pro or con, because other than weeping, I don’t have one. But I’m already in the middle of the debate, to a degree, and when we call for federal single payer/Medicare Part E, this is the kind of thing that will be front-and-center. So seriously, what do you think, Prosperibanalice? I’m listening.

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beb said on February 12, 2012 at 4:53 pm

Jeff, if more editorials asked thoughtful and well researched questions like you do I’d read more editorial’s. As you point out, the sad fact is that there are no good answers to the question of adolescent sexuality. If you don’t give them contraception they will get pregnant. If you do give them contraception you’re just encouraging them to have more sex. But on the whole I’d rather have pre-teen girls able to get the contraceptions than get pregnant. The former may be immoral but the latter destroys two lives.

Kinky trashes hypocrisy. The idea that victims of date rape should be denied access to the morning after pill is so revolting, only GOPers could possibly be this heinous. Barefoot and pregnant. That is their objection to Obama aside from his skin.

Get the opinion of the experts, is what I always say. According to the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, a little revulsion therapy works wonders for the kids. Once the boys and girls have been split for Jesus, they’re reluctant to pursue their slutty ways, seems to be the thinking.
Now the Republicans have rallied around the bishops for their stance against women, we may get to see if it effectively turns us into one of those economic powerhouses like 19th century Ireland, or post-Isabella Spain.
I suspect they’re shooting for the halcyon days of the Holy Roman Empire. Hitler couldn’t quite get it up again for them, the fucking liberal.

Absinthe and sex have nothing to do with each other. Kids will have sex. This is an absolutely, guaranteed truism. The unfortunate offspring are a social problem. And, yeah, I’d let kids make their own choices on Green Fairy and heroine. You can’t tout personhood for unborn children and deny the persons have rights of their own.

I sincerely believe in disenfranchising redneck idiots. The idea that Abstinence indoctrination actually accomplishes a social good other than enriching the abstinence preachers is fucking bizarre, and totally GOPer. This is insane bullshit, and QB1 will still get in Cheerleader’s pants.

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brian stouder said on February 12, 2012 at 5:44 pm

Sherri is absolutely correct.

Jeff – you and many others who do your sort of work are the indispensable rivets and welds in the structural steel of our society. I suppose if I really had to, I could possibly face the sorts of heart-rending things that you do every day, but it would certainly shorten my life and darken my days.

Not for nothing, but speaking of shortened, darkened lives, this contraceptive/culture war ‘controversy’ is (in addition to being profoundly divorced from reality) willfully ignorant of our not-that-far-back history.

Ideally, I suppose everyone wants their daughters to get well into their adulthood (at least into their 20’s) before they become intimate with men, and/or have babies.

But God designed it so that girls could become pregnant at a much younger age; why did He do that?

And, if we disagree with God’s ‘original intent’, and still want mothers to be older than early-teens, then why on Earth would we argue about contraception?

In fiscal terms, it’s hugely less expensive for society (let alone the individuals directly affected) to prevent pregnancies than to deal with babies who, excepting government, have no other ‘safety net’ at all.

And if zygotes are people (my friends), then we need much, much larger police forces, and much larger prisons. Every man and woman who has sex should be subject to immediate investigation, because think of all the ‘persons’ who might have failed to implant, and who therefore will “die” of neglect and biological abandonment.

Sex for pleasure? God made that. As a gift to His Creation. Anybody that doesn’t understand that has a severe psychological disease, and probably can’t get it up without government-sponsored little blue pills. What is wrong with these people?

Well, when we were hungrier more often, and didn’t get much of the good stuff, girls became women at 15 and were married at 16. Now, good nutrition (and yes, I know there’s questions about other factors, but leave that alone for the moment) means 13 or 12, and average age of first marriage is up to 26+ for women. On my MOST conservative day (which is usually Tuesdays), I don’t believe any meaningful subset of society will abstain from premarital anything for ten plus years. It. Won’t. Happen. Doesn’t matter what your program is.

But as Beb and others have said, go into some of my more problematic schools, and offer full contraception from 6th grade on, and it’s not open to dispute that you will be promoting further sexual experimentation. I’m not even going to fight on that ground, but as my [koff] hypothetical [koff] from last Thursday shows, you do diddly-squat-doo-dah about STDs with Norplant or whatever. Which means more detailed, repeated, emphatic instruction in schools on use of full-protection contraception for middle schoolers? That’s not going to get you a healthy majority support anytime in the foreseeable future. And will have, among other side effects, more families pull their kids out to avoid that and put them in skeezy private/charter/religious schools where George Washington took down the Declaration of Independence as dictation from God (yes, I know).

So we have sexually active kids, which I think we all agree is problematic (kids being middle & elementary school in my formulation), and youth/young adults trying to figure out what kind of sexuality is appropriate and mentally healthy, morality & churches aside, in that ten year lacuna which no church has figured out what to shout into, other than a plaintively echoing “Doooooooon’tttttttt . . .”

Jeff, making this into an Obama as antichrist issue is so bizarre the accusers’ sanity is in question. As in “Obama promotes teen pregnancy” What is wrong with these lying assholes? This is way beyond considering social issues, it is blaming problems on the most convenient darkie. That is what is going on.

I believe children have always been sexually active. This is a current argument because whackjob rightwingers think it is somehow an effective weapon against a black guy. I have had it with this shit.

Brother Brian, the Lord hath set the biological clock for women early so that adolescents may prove the strength of their love and faith in Jesus by refusing to give in to the strawberry preserves of Satan. Contraception is the dessert spoon of the damned.
As Gail Collins noted this week, a married woman, even though she bare numerous children into the church of the fathers, cannot insert the tympanum of Ahasuerus, for lo, it maketh her no better than a common whore upon the street.

Brian, I should also note: you’re much too kind. In all seriousness, I believe anyone sober & able to pass the common pleas court drug test could do my job after a) 60 hours training by a skilled mediation instructor, b) following me or my super around for two weeks, and c) being able to listen closely.

You can’t do this work if you are a) reflexively judgmental, b) can’t control your wince/ouch/b***s*** facial reflex when listening to someone tell their side of the story, and c) have a compulsive need to fix things. You can’t fix people, and we’re not there to do that. Mediation has certain, stated, up-front goals, and if in each mediation you achieve them, you’re doing a good job. If you try to stay involved in every case to the n-th degree, you will fry your compassion circuits in a month. We do, however, have a unique ability to make referrals in a creative fashion, where POs and even the magistrates & judge cannot outside of very tight guidelines. That part is rewarding, but you have to watch yourself (or work with a trusted colleague who will call BS on you if you deny it) in case you start to over-commit, over-promise, and get over-involved.

But from my reading, there’s not a commenter here who couldn’t do this job. Sober. Yes, there are days I’d like to be in some altered state, but that’s usually after the agreement is signed and everyone walks away into the world outside of the room.

My good friends over at the Ohio Historical Society are putting together a second edition of an exhibit they just took down, placarded “Controversy.” It was an excellent piece of historical interpretation for 2011, placing a Klan robe, the old state elecric chair, and a confinement crib from an asylum on exhibit with minimal explication, and plenty of “space” for visitor reaction.

I note this because of the five “long hidden holdings” of OHS in the first round was a sheepskin condom from c. 1860, found in a Muskingum River steamboat captain’s diary — you rinsed them, dried them, and reused them (they had a ribbon threaded into the base to tie it in place for added security). The main reaction was “whaaaa? They had condoms in 1860?” To which the interpreter’s answer was “these type have been around for at least a thousand years that we know of.” Roman ones have been found that are nearly identical to this example:

“Controversy.” It was an excellent piece of historical interpretation for 2011, placing a Klan robe, the old state elecric chair, and a confinement crib from an asylum on exhibit with minimal explication, and plenty of “space” for visitor reaction.

Back when Fort Wayne had its Lincoln Museum, the young folks and I were visiting and they had manacles – such as would be used on an enslaved person’s wrists and ankles – which you could touch and/or put your hand into.

This made a huge impression on our daughter (I think she was 9 or 10 at the time), which she still occasionally mentions.